Orson Welles directs a scene from "Citizen Kane" on location in Hollywood in July 1940, with cinematographer Gregg Toland handling the camera. The 1941 Oscar won by Welles, who also starred in the film, will go on the auction block in December. The Academy Award for best screenplay is estimated to sell for between $800,000 and $1.2 million, Sotheby's auction house said Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2007.

Citizen Kane is a 1941Americandramatic film and the first feature film directed by Orson Welles, who also co-authored the screenplay. It was released by RKO Pictures. The story is a fictionalized pastiche of the life of William Randolph Hearst and Welles' own life . Upon its release, Hearst prohibited mention of the film in any of his newspapers. The film traces the life and career of Charles Foster Kane, a man whose career in the publishing world is born of idealistic social service, but gradually evolves into a ruthless pursuit of power. Narrated principally through flashbacks, the story is revealed through the research of a newspaper reporter seeking to solve the mystery of the newspaper magnate's dying word: "Rosebud."
Citizen Kane is often cited as being one of the most innovative works in the history of film. The American Film Institute placed it at number one in its list of the 100 greatest U.S. movies of all time in 1997 and again in the revised list of 2007. In a recent poll of film critics and directors conducted by the British Film Institute, Citizen Kane was ranked the number one best film of all time by both groups From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia